Bloodspeaker

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A Bloodspeaker

The Bloodspeakers were an order of maho-tsukai created by Iuchiban in the 5th century. In the following centuries, the Bloodspeakers formed a secret society that infected all social layers of the Empire. By the 12th century, there were members of the Bloodspeaker cult in every Great Clan, as well as many among the minor clans and lower caste villages.

Contents

The followers of Iuchiban were dedicated to put their masters in the Imperial Throne. In secret they were practitioners of maho and human sacrifice was part of their rituals. As tools they raised zombies commanded through their porcelain masks. [1] They were organized in self-sufficient cells with a leader, keeping secrecy through isolation. [2] Initiates entered by recommendation, hadving a cultist relative who already had taught him, or after careful scrutiny. [3]

The lower classes provided the majority of the bloodspeaker followers, being the eta the most common. Those of the samurai caste who joined the cult were driven by desire of power, revenge, or similar circumstances. [4]

The use of maho bore the corruption to the caster, but in a different way that the taint gained by visiting the Shadowlands. No abnormal transformations happened in externally in their bodies, instead they tended to have insanity and mental instability, and they could suffer internal modifications. If a cultist entered the Shadowlands they quickly suffered physical and mental transformation that led to death or madness. [5]

Iuchiban's followers invoked the Oracle of Blood to draw upon Iuchiban's command of maho, using him as an intermedlary between the power of Jigoku and their personal command of maho. Invoking Iuchiban's name dramatically increased the hold Iuchiban had over his vassals, resulting in a permanent bond being forged between any two souls that interacted in this manner. [6]

The Bloodspeakers were founded after the first death of Iuchiban in the year 510. While his spirit wandered the Empire in secret, the sorcerer needed assistance to help him prepare for his return. Whispering the dark secrets of maho into the ears of angry and disaffected members of society, Iuchiban bound these individuals to him with promises of far greater power when he sat upon the throne of the Empire. They began to seek the Four Masks of Iuchiban which could free their master. [12]

After Yajinden's escape, he worked to restore the Bloodspeaker Cult and free his master. Over the course of centuries, in the bodies of dozens of hosts, he guided the Bloodspeakers. [12] In 750 Iuchiban escaped from his tomb. [14]

A cell of Bloodspeakers living near Otosan Uchi discovered the ancient prophecy hidden by the Scorpion Clan, stated that Fu Leng would arise when the Hantei was the last of his line in the Empire. The Bloodspeakers sought to quicken this apocalypse by kidnapping the Emperor's wife and children. [16] In 1111 the bloodspeakers attacked a caravan transporting the EmpressHantei Hochiahime and the five-year-old imperial heir Hantei Sotorii. They were held in a camp in Kiken no Roka, Treacherous Pass. The heir was saved by the mountain-dwelling roninYotsu, who traded his son Kyoden with the heir. The Empress, pregnant with the second son of the Emperor, stayed behind so that Yotsu could escape. [17] The Empire assumed she was sacrificed by the Bloodspeakers, but after the bloodspeakers had discovered she was with child they kept her alive long enough to give birth in the Unicorn lands. [18] Her son was raised among the bloodspeakers and later became Daigotsu. The son of Yotsu used to fool the bloodspeakers was also alive, now Goju Kyoden, the yojimbo of Daigotsu, and had suffered the same ritual and exile as Daigotsu. [19]

Three cells were active after the War. Chuda Mishime and Iuchi Shahai led two of them in the Shadowlands, directly linked to Daigotsu. The third was under the control of Jama Suru at the City of Tears, supported by the Oracle of Blood itself. [10]

The bloodspeaker were usually concealed cultists, working in hidden places. They rely in the secrecy to not be exterminated. It changed in 1166, when an empowered Iuchiban ordered to all cells and bloodspeakers to expose as cultists killing any Rokugani at hand. [21]

After Iuchiban was killed by Isawa Sezaru in 1166[23] the bloodspeakers considerably lessened in numbers and lacked any clear-cut leadership. They were pursued by Sezaru in the Blood Hunt, which ended when the Wolf died in 1169. Some sought refuge in the Spider Clan, while others went completely underground. The survivors, less than two hundred, were hardened fanatics, determined to hide and endure as long as they had to in order to reclaim their power and find some way of bringing back their leader. [24] Less than two hundred members formed the cult in the late 12th century. [25]